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Photos have the amazing ability to hit just the right spot. I saw this photo via a twitter friend’s Instagram timeline. What caught my attention was the use of Fleetwood Mac lyrics from the song Dreams caption. “When the rain washes you clean will know. A New Year, a new beginning.” That struck a chord in me. Thanks C for letting me share this photo on the blog. You are a star! The photo and the words just fit.

Take this chance everybody, to reinvent yourself, to better yourself, to get rid of the bad habits, to right the wrong decisions, to forge new paths. God blessed us with New Years so that we can get do overs…but then again, it’s also important to remember that each morning, His mercies are new, and we are blessed with new chances.

One of my favourite New Year quotes is from William Arthur Ward:

“Another fresh new year is here . . . another year to live! To banish worry, doubt, and fear, to love and laugh and give! This bright new year is given me to live each day with zest . . . to daily grow and try to be my highest and my best! I have the opportunity once more to right some wrongs, to pray for peace, to plant a tree, and sing more joyful songs.”

On the night of December 16, 2011, Tropical Storm Sendong killed hundreds & displaced thousands in Cagayan de Oro & Iligan City – a populated area in northern Mindanao, Philippines. This site compiles relevant information about the disaster and a list of relief organizations accepting donations, so that more help can be provided where it is needed.

We are accepting relevant information related to the disaster relief operations. Join us in our Facebook Group Mata na, CDO at this link . We are also accepting collaborators for this document, email brent@cdo.linux.org.ph or evansyonson@gmail.com

1. Be at Cathedral 1:30 pm. Memorial Mass at 2 pm for all those who perished in the tragedy. To be presided by Archbishop Antonio Ledesma.

2. After the Mass, the Task Force Macajalar will present an environmental situationer. There will also be inter-faith prayers.

3. Following this, there will be a march to the Provincial Capitol, passing by the City Hall.

4. A multi-sectoral rally will be held there, with speakers from various flood victims. The rally will be an occasion for all to decide what course of action will best be beneficial for our city on the matter of public accountability.

Volunteer Work

Do you want to volunteer? Or are you looking for volunteers? Click here.

If you can afford to take in temporary visitors, or rent out apartments, use the first link. Just in case you need a place to stay, or know someone who needs a place to stay – use the second link below.

Valid donation amounts for GLOBE are 5,25,50,100,300, while SMART 10,25,50,100 and will be charged to bill/load.

4143

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3. Cash Donations

7-11 outlets, nationwide (No service fees will be deducted and donors will be provided an official receipt.)

In-kind Donation Drop-off Points

Fast Logistics in Manila has volunteered to help in ferrying/trucking of relief items within Metro Manila to shipping/drop off points. Please message Bomboy Lim +639175822667 or +639228889898 on Facebook for coordination.

I don’t think I’m a miserly old man bah-humbugging going to the cinema and I am miserly when it comes to shelling out the money for a movie ticket. I love movies, whether in the cinema or on the couch at home. I love the movie watching experience and I go the whole hog. I make sure I have great seats, movie snacks and the appropo beverage (more often than not a diet soda.). I love watching movies enough to go to the cinema alone. When I needed time away from the world in the Philippines, I’d nip out and watch a movie alone. I was there in a quiet part of the movie theatre, with my soda and my popcorn happily muching away while staring at the huge screen.

I love being able to watch a movie in peace. I take great pains in making sure I’m sitting where there isn’t anyone to block the view and the area is quiet enough so I can watch AND listen to the conversation in the movie. It doesn’t matter whether I’m sitting in the front or way in the back. I just want to make sure I’m sitting where is quiet and my view is unrestricted and there aren’t a lot of people around me. I get really irritable when there are conversations about the movie around because I try so hard to munch on my movie snacks quietly so I don’t interrupt anyone else’s movie-watching pleasure (although I really think it’s just that I’m becoming ornery in my old age—grumpy thirty-something alert!), the least some people could do is to try and not ruin anyone else’s movie-watching pleasure too.

I was supposed to post the surprisingly good parody of the John Lewis advert that Channel 4 did for Gordon Ramsay’s Christmas special. Mind you, I don’t like the guy very much as I think the man is a pompous so-and-so, BUT, that parody was quite good!

And because someone’s decided not to share their toys and throw a hissyfit, the youtube video’s been marked “private” and I can’t share it with you.

I would like to think that I’m not too much of a delicate soul. I’d like to think that I’ve grown up a little, am not to wide-eyed with wonder, slightly toughened up and a little more street-smart now. But street-smart and toughened up does not mean accepting that having to swear every other sentence is the norm, not in my books anyway.

Since I’ve moved to the UK, I’ve learned more swear phrases than I care to mention. Mind you, people are always mostly polite and when they do blurt out an expletive, I find it endearing when they apologise for it by saying something like, “Oh pardon my french!”

I never realised, really, how disruptive to one’s psyche swearing is. I was raised to never swear. I remember once, when I started using the S word, my father sat me down and gave me a stern lecture about how a lady should never swear, and all his children were raised to behave properly. Also, being someone who has grown up in church, I was taught that “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable…” (Philippians 4:8) that is how we should behave.

I work with someone who has a penchant (and that’s a gross understatement) for swearing. It seems like there is a swear word in every other sentence. When I first started working with her, it was a novelty…and I thought I could cope. I still cannot believe that a woman, a mother would have such a potty mouth! I find myself gritting my teeth and actually swearing, too, in my head. She would probably laugh this off and say something flippant like, “Oh I do love having someone to corrupt!” But I very, very rarely swear and I find that I do it more and more in my head now. I find myself in constant prayer for patience, for God to make her stop swearing and for my tongue to stick to the roof of my mouth, so I, myself, don’t swear, even in thought.

There are days when I find myself looking up to check whether the air hasn’t turned blue yet with all the swearing. I’ve asked that she not swear, and she tries to humour me (which includes remarks about not being allowed to swear). This lasts a few hours and then she reverts back to type.

I find it very unnerving that she does not make more of an effort. I make an effort to adjust to her, shall we say, quirks, the least she can do in return is respect my sensitivities. It’s not an environment that I want to be in, and it’s not an environment that I feel particularly productive in.

I think when you come from a customer service background, you’re quicker to spot customer service booboos and shortcomings. I’m a firm believer that the way customers are treated make the restaurant. It’s mostly the staff and how the staff treat their patrons that tips the balance. I have places that I love that may not necessarily be the best places to eat, but because the service is amazing and, when I go there, I feel important and valued (no matter how much my tab is and no matter how much of a tip I leave), it’s on my list of great places to have a meal at. During my recent London sojourn I ate at 2 different Chinese restaurants and let me just say that one restaurant offered stellar service while the other one has been tossed into my “do not visit ever again” pile.

A Tale of Two Restaurants

HK Diner, Chinatown, London
After I’d done my whistle stop pilgrimage to the Methodist Museum (it was after 5pm, so naturally, the museum was closed and all I had was a measly 7 snapshots!) it was decided that we’d go to Chinatown for dinner. I’d been looking forward to dinner for a long time because it had been decided AGES ago that dinner would be at Tai Ka Lok.

Having dinner at Tai Ka Lok is like having dinner at your Chinese aunt’s place (I’m not Chinese, but in my head having a meal at Tai Ka Lok would be like having a meal at one’s Chinese aunt–stereotyping, I know! Tres guilty!). It’s very pared down and very simple. You get the menu, you get the free soup as an appetiser, they bring you your food, you eat (of course after you finish eating, you pay!). The roasted meats are amazing (my absolute favourite is the crispy pork but their version of the pork mapo tofu is amazing too!) and you can see that a lot of people like eating at Tai Ka Lok because the table turnover is hard and fast (mind you, even though the table turnover is quick, you never really feel that you’re being rushed through your meal and I feel that’s a sign of great customer service!).

But, I digress! Anyway, there we were walking towards Tai Ka Lok when we noticed the front window was papered with…well, newspaper. Apparently, the restaurant was being refurbished so they said to go to another restaurant. One of the suggestions was HK Diner. So off we went to HK Diner.

I’d pooh-poohed HK Diner for such a long time because I didn’t really think it was going to be as good as my Chinatown favourites Tai Ka Lok and New World (dimsum on trolleys! YUM!). But as we were hungry and the other option wasn’t something we wanted to try (and it was very forgettable as I can’t remember the name now!), we decided to risk HK Diner. If it was a bad experience, we’d just never come back. But surprise, surprise! The place was light, airy and somehow comforting. We were shown into a huge booth and were handed menus. The chinese tea came right away, steaming hot, and after we’d placed our orders, the food came shortly after! The service was quick and the staff were very friendly and helpful. I loved the fact that they asked us if everything was okay and if we needed anything else (mind you, in hindsight, it might’ve been their way of hurrying us along, but at the time we were none the wiser and it didn’t feel like we were being prodded along).

Also, and this was my favourite bit, when we asked for the leftover food to be wrapped up they gave us chopsticks! They gave us the generic packet that has a plastic soup spoon, chopsticks and a paper napkin. Mind you, it doesn’t take a long time to plonk that into a bag, but the thought process behind that take home packet of utensils was what I admired. Now that is service!

Hung Tao, Queensway, London
I had high hopes for this place. It looked clean, and airy and the food hanging by the window looked well-cooked (I’m a sucker for crispy duck!).

It was clean and airy. But that’s where my commendations stop. We were greeted in a hurried fashion and led to a table, with menus placed on the table unceremoniously. I wasn’t alarmed then because, really, you were in, you were made to sit, and you were given a menu to peruse, you were given food, you ate, you paid, you were out. That was fine. Nothing unusual.

I made a point of asking for a pot of Chinese tea as I was removing my coat. I was thirsty and it was a bit chilly outside as it was just starting to rain. It was a good thing I ordered the tea because it took them ages to take our order.

After looking at the menu, we’d decided to each get a rice plate with our choice of meats. After ages trying to catch they eye of waitstaff (after seeing people who arrived after we did get served first!), I guess they finally took pity and came to take our orders. I still wasn’t disappointed at this point. But the seeds of doubt about the service came when the girl, with pen poised over pad, took note of our choices.

I chose the roasted two combination with rice, which was a plate of rice (it was a huge plate of rice that my brother would’ve devoured I think!) and your choice of roasted meat (I think you can choose from crispy duck, soy chicken, char siu pork and crispy pork). I was waiting for her to ask me which roasted meats I wanted but she didn’t. So I had to ask her to make sure I had crispy duck and soy chicken. She looked at me with this little frown on her face. I guess she expected me to get crispy pork and duck—or whatever was the popular choice. The frown was still there as she wrote down my choice. To go with our rice plates, we asked to have stirfried vegetables.

And then the waiting continued. It took them about 25 minutes to get our orders and it took them nearly twice as long to bring our food. It wasn’t until I noticed that people who had arrived before we did were served first and were given their orders first that I started feeling little niggles of irritation. What was up with that?!? And to add insult to injury, the meats arrived cold, my duck had bones with tiny little shards of shattered duck bone everywhere. I thought the duck was deboned before you got served it?

There was a couple who were seated beside us who looked at the food we got when it arrived. They asked us what we ordered and we described it. When a member of staff came to take their orders it was so painful to hear and watch. There was a language barrier, definitely. But with the customer pointing to what they wanted and the member of staff insisting they wanted something else, it was all I could do to stop myself from getting involved. They finally got their orders, but I don’t know if they really got what they ordered because by the time we’d finished and paid our tab, their food hadn’t arrived yet.

The food was good, albeit being cold (I guess they expected the rice to warm it up. Didn’t happen, buddy!) and I was happy with the flavours. But it really was the service that ruined the experience for me. The waitstaff seemed to have a system of prioritising customers which I couldn’t understand. I’m not asking to be waited on hand and foot. But nearly and hour of waiting to be fed is not funny.

Yesterday, in the morning, I was sleepily reading through my Twitter timeline when the train driver apologised for the non-movement of the train. To be honest, in the back of my mind, I was wondering why we weren’t moving from the Mistley platform. Apparently, at Manningtree, someone had attempted suicide (I’m assuming it was by jumping on the tracks) but was apprehended by the police. There was a “congestion” of trains on the platforms at Manningtree because of this and this was the reason for our train’s non-movement.

I was mentally thinking, “People with suicidal intentions are selfish! Why attempt suicide at the busiest time of the day and inconvenience the rest of the world?” After having said that, I had a bit of a think. I am not normally insensitive to other people’s feelings. I tend to be a bit more considerate as I will, more often than not, adjust according to what is best for everyone.

My stand on suicide is a bit more inflexible though. Suicide should NEVER be an option. There is always something else, some other way out, some other solution, some other way of dealing with a problem. Life is too changeable to just want to end it. And besides, the old adage of life being like a wheel (sometimes you’re on top, sometimes you’re on the bottom)? That’s pretty much true. Things will get better and they always do. It’s never really bad all the time. There are wonderfully good times, even if there are only snatches of it. And I believe that the good times, however few and far in between, are worth staying alive for.

I am blessed to have faith that bolsters me when things are difficult. And when I hear news about people committing suicide, I just wish they had the reassurance that I have from my faith, because it gets me through the toughest thing.